CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – It’s been said that politics is the art of the possible. Knowing what victory looks like is a political gift. Republicans need to find it in greater amounts in the debt ceiling debate.
If the definition of winning is getting the other side to make concessions, the GOP won. It’s not even close. Consider that Joe Biden’s position was a clean bill to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. On that, the President refused to negotiate. Until he did.
Frankly, the Biden position was untenable and dumb. You can’t say for months that an economic catastrophe is looming, and, oh, by the way, I’m not negotiating. That’s silly.
So the negotiated deal will freeze almost all domestic spending at 2022 levels through the 2025 budget. The GOP gets to claw back unspent COVID and stimulus dollars, and even gets to roll back a huge expansion at the Internal Revenue Service. The only thing team Biden gets is that they won’t have to deal with the debt ceiling again until after the 2024 elections.
I know there are some conservatives who are holding out for spending cuts, not spending freezes. I’m with them in spirit. But remember the art of the possible. Republicans control only the House of Representatives. Cuts would not make it through the Democrat-controlled senate. Joe Biden will use the agreement he negotiated as a campaign talking point. “We could do this-this-and this for the American people, if only it wasn’t for that spending freeze that I got forced into.” Good luck with that. Many Democrats in Congress will be voting for this plan since they’re already on the record about how disastrous a default would be. That rhetoric doesn’t work if you vote against the only plan available.
The Republican position should be this: we’ve applied the brakes to the runaway spending train for the next two years. Now let’s work on electing more conservatives to Congress and putting one in the White House. Then we can shift the debate to what should be cut.
Chris Conley
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